Search form

New to scrapbooking!

So I'm new to the scrapbooking world! I have always loved taking pictures to capture memories and am always uploading pics of my family to facebook and I also have a family blog. But I am clueless to making a scrapbook page. I never got involved because I didn't want to deal with the clutter and mess of it (and the expense!) But with digital I can avoid all that! And also, how do you make your own kit? I have photoshop elements but am clueless as how to us it.So please fill me in!

Welcome to digital scrapbooking! It can take awhile to learn how your program works, but with patience you will be a scrapping queen in no time! My best suggestion would be to find tutorials that work best for you and book mark them. Watch them, then watch them again while you do what they are doing, and then play with what you've learned and expand on it. Learning how to make paper backgrounds is a good starting point. There are a lot of great tutorials and video's here, and you can find some on youtube as well. Most importantly, don't give up. If you get stuck on something, ask us here. This community is full of people waiting to help you out!

@Stefanee: I'm sorry... I am so NOT a designer. LoL but we do have a designers challenge over in the challenge forum that may help you to learn the beginning stages piece by piece. I know they make papers and elements each month that I believe can be made to match a color scheme and become your first kit of sorts. And I'm sure the other ladies present and future designers to be will be glad to assist you in any help you require and tips that they've learned along the way. I know it will be a great safe place to grow and learn.

I also saw a thread somewhere around here about some classes some of the ladies have taken that you learn and get very detailed lessons. I believe it was a paid class though. I'll see if I can find that thread and post a link for you to peruse.

@Shawna Thank you! I'm not so sure I want to get into the business side of making kits but more for me and maybe I could get a blog going with free downloads. like summer driggs site, if you've ever seen hers. I love her stuff!

I love Summers Kits! She's always been such a kind and generous woman. I also love that she's done a couple that she did donations to a family in need. The design challenges here may be more up your alley then, because they just do it for themselves to grow and stretch while learning new things. You don't have to be a "selling designer" per se' They just call them designer challenges because you are designing. (if that makes sense) Good Luck!

yea I'm definitely going to try the challenges on here. I love that there's a weekly layout challenge. Makes things fun! I'm really glad I found this site! I just need to stock up on DC so I can get some layouts that I have my eye on!

@Stefanee and everyone else....Scraps N Pieces regularly has classes for digital scrapbooking on Beginning PS/PSE, Photoshop Techniques and a Design Mentoring Class. I think they hold each once a year. I have taken all of them and quite frankly was lost when starting in digi scrapping until I took their beginning class. I also recently finished the Design Mentoring Class and it was probably the best way to learn the design techniques! If you go here you can see the threads related. You do have to sign up in the forum I believe also.

I always found Elements Village useful for PSE! And Hummie's World. And if all else failed, I would Google specifically what I was trying to get done and most of the time, had good luck with that. I'm sure you could post specific questions here, too, and get what you need!

Let me know what you're struggling with as a newbie. It's hard for me to remember back that far, but I'd like to work up more beginner tutorials. I often prefer working from specific questions like, "how do you move a layer?" then general things like, "how do I get started" which is more philosophical if you know what I mean...

I know one thing that would have helped me more when I was first starting - a description of various things... Things like what a brush is (and how to use it), digiscrapping language & what not.

The bigger question is how well does the digiscrapping newbie know their software... If they know it well, they can follow beginner tutorials on digiscrapping with ease... If they don't, they're going to struggle & be far behind everyone else - maybe not even grasping what you're saying.

For example, I attended a few live video-classes on PSP techniques and quickly became overwhelmed not only because the person that was teaching was moving quickly around the screen, but she also had a major accent which made it hard to follow... Because I didn't know the software that well, I quickly became lost and couldn't tell what options she was choosing on the menu, so I know that I barely grasped a thing. Needless to say, I won't attend any of those classes again until I know the latest version of my software well - maybe then I'll be able to follow along... (My hubby upgraded me to a newer version of PSP last December - just as I had started to get comfortable with the version I was on... *sigh*)

I tend towards short, specific tutorials, rather than longer ones because it's easy to get lost and overwhelmed in a long one. Also, my attention span for a tutorial is like 2 minutes...It's easier to go back and check something out that way too. If it's a long tutorial you have to scroll around trying to find what you're looking for.

I'd appreciate a list of beginner short topics, like Lizanne's "What is a brush?"

Here's a few things off the top of my head that you could do a write-up on for newbies...

Create a list of things used in digiscrapping, defining what each of those items are... Not many people will know what a "style" is or a "cluster" is; what a "pattern" is and how it's used or what an "overlay" is; what "actions" are, not to mention "presets." You could also use illustrate how you would use each of those items, and let them know what programs they would work in... Because a lot of digiscrapping supplies are made for PS only, it would also be helpful to have a comprehensive list of what things only work in PS. It would also be helpful if you could give a work-around for people using other software programs so they can achieve the same effect.

A tutorial on how to use a quick page would be helpful... Most newbies will start out using them because they don't know their software yet or how to digiscrap... Things like how to get that photo into the blank spot(s). How to apply a shadow to it (inner shadow or what not). How to add journaling to it &/or a title... How to use those alphas & put them on their layout.

A good tutorial to follow that would be how to use a template, so people can move away from using quickpages & start making their own layouts... That would probably involve talking a lot about layers, how to select things, how to "clip" things, how to re-color things, etc. How to save your layouts; how to re-size them for uploading to a gallery; and how to upload them into a gallery.

And I've often read that shadowing can make or break a layout. So that's another area you could cover... Maybe you could write about the purpose of shadowing, explain different methods/ways of shadowing, give steps on how to shadow various items, and maybe provide of list of settings that people can refer to when shadowing various items (be it papers, elements, alphas, photos, etc.).

A tutorial on fixing your photos (maybe they're dark, blurry or what not), time warping them (sepia tone, b+w or what not) and/or resizing them would also help.

You could also write about downloading digiscrapping supplies (which they'll be using as they start trying to create their own layouts); tell people what tagger size kits are & what they're used for (so they don't waste their time or harddrive space downloading them if they want to use them for layouts); the importance of creating an organization system before you start downloading supplies (maybe offer up suggestions for folder names, etc.); and the importance of making a list of the supplies you've used for each layout you've made so you can give proper credit to the digiscrapping designers.

Here's another good one: Maybe their husband or son does all the software installs on their PC... They may not even know what a "zip" file is, so you may have to explain what it is... Talk about the various types of zipped files out there (zips, tars, etc.), and how to unzip the files they've downloaded... Also offer recommendations on what program(s) they can download & use to unzip their zip files (like "Extract Now," which is a free program that unzips nearly every type of zipped file I've come across).

I know it took me a while to pick up the digiscrapping language, too. So a post on that would probably be helpful to newbies as well... Things like what a layout is, what a template is & what they're generally composed of, talk extensively about layers (vector, raster, etc.) and what not.

A list of shortcuts would be helpful.

And a post on creating photo books would be helpful, too. Everything from creating one to where to send off your creations to for printing.

I think a good tutorial for a newbie (like myself) would be something like "building your first layout" and make something very basic. Where you show how to open a new project, adding in a paper or two, a frame, a few elements and of course a picture.

Your "Make this page: Malaysia" video was really helpful for me in figuring out how to use a template.

I know when I started I would have loved a video of how to put together your first layout, however, some newbies are actually new to their programs too. So basics like how to use layers, how to use a brush, how to set a page up as in sizes, etc.

This place already has some great links that I'm sure I'll be up all night checking out. So helpful! Thanks

I'm new to digiscrapping too and as a tagger ( which seems to be a dirty word around here) I tend to work with smaller sized items.
I worry that I will run out of room downloading all these HUGE kits which are often such large sizes. I tend to make things brag book size in order to save room and because I am used to working small.

Is there a way to legally make these kits smaller. Is there a script or action to apply to a kit to shrink it.
is this allowed?

@Kay: I'm sure you can legally shrink them/resize them if they are for your personal use only. Maybe even so on the CU stuff...

Now as far as knowing where to send you to find a automated way to do this is not an answer I have on tap. sorry... I'm sure if you search google or bing or maybe even ask at your tagger group, you'd find a action that would work.

PS I want you to know we don't think tagger is a "dirty" word. I think it's just 95% of us are probably scrapping to have a IRL sized album, so we typically end up bummed when we find a absolutely to die for GORGEOUS kit, download it get all our photos together to scrap with it and as soon as we open a paper or element in PSCS, we discover... oppps that's not going to work. LoL
You are more than welcome here! I'm sorry if anyone here gave the impression we didn't like taggers. I assure you that is NOT our thought at all. We are more than excited to have you as a wonderful part of our little community. {{{huugggs}}}

I don't know of any easy way to make things smaller...and yes like above, I don't think tagger is a dirty word, but when you're ready to scrap and find out the kit is actually too small for your IRL album its a bummer.

Kay, I'm a tagger, too, and I know exactly what you mean! I won't get involved in a discussion about tagging again... LOL! I understand that there is a place for both taggers and digi-scrappers, and that the two are not mutually exclusive, but I think I am in a minority.

I also use PSP instead of PSE, etc., and I feel out of place on a lot of things. But I've figured out that I just do my own thing, don't try to read the tutorials for PSE unless it's something I really, really, really want to try and see a way to do it in PSP. I have done some of the designer challenges, but I'm not sure I'll do very many of them. I need to work on layouts more than designing.

As far as making the kits smaller, the only way I ever found (and I did use some scrapper kits when I was tagging) was to open each piece and resize them. I also store all my materials on an external hard drive or portable drive because I worry about all the memory it takes. I have an older computer, so it gets cranky sometimes.

Does PSP have actions like Photoshop? The key to resizing things in an action is to use a percentage, rather than a specific size (since in the action you'll be resizing lots of things that are different sizes). Sorry I can't help better for PSP, but if you want more details for Photoshop I can help there.

Hi Welcome!! I have PSE also. I have version 10. I learned to use my PSE for digi scrapping as i went along and of course the tutorials really do help. I wasn't a stranger to doing graphics with it. However like you doing a layout was beyond me and doing a scrapbook page seemed a bit out of my reach, but i watched a few tutorials and it seemed to click and make sense.

i found looking at the free stuff gives inspiration and kinda helps to understand how preview pages are made and kits are put together, but that's just me since i learn by doing and seeing. Also sometimes the free kits are commercial use, not all of them, but some and those are good to download and have if you aren't going to sell the stuff you make they are also usefull for doing layout pages and what not.

The best place to start is here in this forum! and get your hands on all the tutorials you can, you can even google digital scrapbooking tutorials for pse and i am sure you will get some good ones.

@Sarah Price and Sara Starkenburg: Basically... and this is basic as I'm not a tagger... but to answer your question:
A tagger is a person who makes very small scale or for web interface only type layouts... or as they call them tags. Usually they are made at 72ppi, and rarely at 96ppi (when the newer widescreen monitors came to be. I think the term came about from people creating a signature line (or tag line) as some call them... hence the name "tagger" for the creator of such artwork.
Sometimes for a long time anyways, they tended to be very "sexy" in nature. I don't know if this is still the case as I quit really looking at tagger based websites. But that's my "small" knowledge on the subject to try to answer your question.